Word: mazar
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...still on the loose. Efforts to apprehend al-Qaeda fighters in Afghanistan have slowed, as thousands have bought safe refuge in the hamlets and villages of the Afghan countryside. "The mission is to take al-Qaeda apart piece by piece," says Mohammed Anwar, the head of intelligence in Mazar-i-Sharif. "But it's very difficult work." CIA, FBI and military intelligence officials have spent eight weeks interviewing the 300 detainees in Cuba for information on the whereabouts of the al-Qaeda leadership, but defense sources told TIME that any prisoners now in U.S. custody know little, if anything, about...
...late December, word went around that Dadullah was in Balkh, 25 kilometers to the west of Mazar: the CIA and hundreds of Alliance soldiers descended on the town and searched every house. "The soldiers just use it as an excuse to take whatever they wanted," said the agent, "They stole everything and even raped some of the women." In mid-February there was another report that Dadullah was in Sancharak, the tiny village in the mountains to the south of Mazar. Alliance commander Gen. Abdul Rashid Dostum, confident that Dadullah was as good as caught, was rash enough to announce...
...command of northern Afghanistan who refused to surrender alongside his superior, Mullah Fazil, at Kunduz in November. He has been hiding out ever since, surrounded by ten bodyguards, moving from house to house and sending the Alliance and CIA on occasional high speed chases across the desert around Mazar. "He only drinks bottled Pepsi from the shops and lives almost entirely on cakes and bread." says one Alliance agent. "If he eats with a family in their home, he always swaps his plate with the one given to the head of the house. He only moves at night...
...know how many were killed, how many fled the country, and how many are hiding. We think we're looking for hundreds of people, but we don't really know." Certainly, in contrast to the American military, the CIA seems to be here for the duration. In Mazar they have rented a house for 6 months at $2500 a month. "They took an option to extend for a year," says the owner, "they're planning to be here for as long as it takes...
...successes are few and far between. Besides Abdullah, just two other Arab al Qaeda members have been captured. Abdullah was the first to be found. Acting on a report from one of his spies that Abdullah was hiding out in Khulshalabad, a hamlet to the west of Mazar with his wife, son and daughter, Anwar paid a visit. He told the people the Americans were intent on hunting down every al Qaeda member. "If you don't give him up the Americans will bomb you," he told them, "They aren't just going to go away." Abdullah surrendered within...